Vengeance

CHAPTER 28

Tobry’s blistered eyes, now thickly coated in bile-green unguent, made him look like a corpse risen from the dead, yet he was unnaturally cheerful. He still wasn’t meeting Rix’s eyes, though. He seemed to be acting himself, trying to appear normal though clearly he was not.

Outside the valley an avalanche filled the central saddle of the pass to a depth of thirty feet, blocking the way they had come. Rix assessed the area, despair rising like a sickness in him.

‘Doesn’t look as though you’ll be finishing the portrait any time soon,’ said Tobry.

‘I gave my word it’d be done,’ Rix snapped, imagining the interview with Lady Ricinus, who could remove more skin with her acid tongue than the palace’s Master of the Floggings with his metal-tipped flails. ‘Is there any other way back?’

Tobry rubbed the top of his head and winced. ‘Only one — north over Hasp Pass, then down a series of unmarked mountain tracks. After that we’ll have to skirt around the eastern side of the Red and Grey Vomits, avoiding any fresh lava flows … and, er, head across the Seethings to the Caulderon Road.’

Rix had never been into that treacherous wasteland of hot springs, boiling mud lakes, bottomless sinkholes and lifeless pools corrosive enough to etch the toenails off anyone foolish enough to wade into them. He had no wish to go there now.

‘Didn’t someone ride into a hidden pool in the Seethings and get boiled alive?’

‘And then there was the fellow who took a dump in a geyser hole,’ said Tobry. ‘Did I tell you — ?’

‘Don’t bother,’ said Rix.

‘Blew him three hundred feet into the air and welded his arse to the back of his head. Gave a whole new meaning to the term — ’

‘I’m not in the mood, Tobe. Can we get home tomorrow?’

Tobry shook his head. ‘Dinner time the day after. Finding your way through the Seethings can be agonisingly slow.’

‘Gods! Mother is going to cut out my kidneys.’ Rix felt the area, which was painfully inflamed where the caitsthe’s claws had scraped down his belly.

‘Why go home?’

‘Sorry?’ said Rix.

Tobry grinned. ‘Defy Lady Ricinus. Neglect your responsibilities.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Every misery in your life comes from the palace, but you come of age in a few weeks and there’s enough coin in your saddlebags to last a year. Run away. Make your own way in the world.’

‘Mother would disinherit me.’

‘And release you from your greatest burden.’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘Why not? You’re strong, vigorous, clever …’ Tobry studied Rix, head to one side. ‘Perhaps clever is too strong a word — ’ He ducked as Rix hurled a coin pouch at him, and they both laughed.

Rix retrieved it, smiling for the first time since they had come up here. Of course Tobry was all right. He was recovering amazingly well, after all he had been through. But, tempting as the suggestion was, Rix could never do it. From the moment he had been able to walk, his destiny and duty had been to become the next Lord Ricinus. Given his father’s focus on drinking himself to death as quickly as possible, Rix might have to assume that responsibility any day.

‘My house needs me,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s what I was born for.’

‘It’s what people told you that you were born for. Your destiny lies in your own hands.’

‘I want to be Lord Ricinus. It’s the very meaning of my existence.’

‘Our existence has no meaning. We just are, and then we die and there’s an end to it.’

‘I hate it when you talk that way,’ Rix snapped.

‘I’ll lie if it’ll make you feel better. Tra-la-laa, tra-la-loy,’ Tobry sang in a girly falsetto, ‘life’s so wonderful I could skip for joy.’

Rix ground his teeth. ‘I can’t run away from my duty at a time like this.’

‘Duty will consume you and crap you out.’

‘I’m in charge of my life.’

‘You, and Lady Ricinus.’

Rix scowled and rode ahead. They picked their way through fetlock-deep snow, heading towards Hasp Pass. To the north he could just make out the fuming top of the Red Vomit. On his right, the dark face of Precipitous Crag reared up behind a series of white-covered ridges. What else did those caverns hide?

The swirling wind that plastered snow on their faces carried a faint, cleansing scent from the resin pines, and it cleared his head. ‘What did you make of those pens?’ he said shortly.

Tobry rubbed his face so furiously that several blisters burst. He jerked around in the saddle and once more his eyes dilated to vacancy.

Rix shivered. Not recovering so well after all. Or was there a darker reason? ‘Tobe?’

It was a long time before he answered. ‘They had the look of breeding pens.’

Every claw wound throbbed at once. ‘For shifters?’

‘That’s my guess.’

‘Why would a wrythen want to breed shifters?’

‘Because no living person could do so safely?’

‘Are you saying it’s working for the enemy?’

‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’

‘What are they up to? How does a wrythen manage it, anyhow?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And that weird cavern below the stair. What was it for?’

‘Trying not to think about it.’

‘Why?’

‘It didn’t look possible, yet it was there.’

‘It had an odd smell, did you notice?’

‘Sickly sweet,’ said Tobry, ‘but masking something that left a bitter taste in the back of my mouth.’

‘Any idea what it was?’

‘Never smelt it before.’

Rix digested that as they rode. ‘The wrythen recognised my sword.’

‘What?’ Tobry said sharply. ‘When?’

‘After I killed the caitsthe.’

Tobry reined in sharply. ‘You — killed — it? How?’

As Rix explained, Tobry’s mouth turned down. ‘All while I lay unconscious?’

‘Yes,’ said Rix. What was the matter now?

‘And then you fought the wrythen?’

‘That’s right. Anyway — ’

‘Great!’ Tobry said. ‘So when you most needed help — ’

‘He recognised my sword,’ Rix said hastily. ‘Oathbreaker’s blade, he called it. What do you suppose that means?’

‘It means things are a lot worse than my worst imaginings.’

‘I wish you’d explain something,’ said Rix when Tobry did not go on. ‘Anything!’

‘The moment we get home, I’ll have to go away for a bit. I need to talk to people.’

‘What about talking to me?’

‘You’ve got the portrait to finish,’ said Tobry, deliberately misunderstanding him. ‘And Lady Ricinus to explain to.’

‘You sure know how to ruin my day.’

‘Thought I’d already done that.’ Tobry looked away.

Finally Rix realised what the matter was. Tobry felt that he had let Rix down. ‘It wasn’t your fault a rock knocked you out.’

‘When you needed my magery, it wasn’t there. That was my fault.’

‘If I’d listened to you, we wouldn’t have gone within miles of that place.’

‘I could have stopped you, and I didn’t,’ Tobry said bitterly.

Leaving him to his dark thoughts, Rix looked ahead. Hasp Pass was a vertical slot between white mountains, like a jawbone missing one front tooth, and the wind whistling through it was a wrythen wailing in a boneyard.

His thoughts returned to the sword. Why had it led him to the wrythen’s caverns? Why had the sword attacked the wrythen of its own accord? ‘And what was that opalised figure all about?’

‘Beg pardon?’ said Tobry.

Rix hadn’t realised he had spoken the last thought aloud. ‘Several times, when I’ve touched the hilt, I’ve seen a life-sized sculpture of a man carved from a single piece of black opal. A twisted figure; a man in agony.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

After a minute or two, Rix said, ‘Why is that quote on my sword notorious?’ He braced himself for another lecture about not paying attention to his tutors.

‘The Immortal Text said that the Herovians were the chosen race and Hightspall was their promised land. That’s why they left Thanneron and sailed here.’

‘I heard they were brawling barbarians, always drunk and fighting everyone.’

‘They were, but in their eyes the book justified their supremacist war against Cythe. And their right to this land.’

A layer of ice formed on the back of Rix’s neck.

‘That’s where the word hero comes from,’ Tobry added. ‘The Five Heroes who led the war were originally called the Five Herovians.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘The Immortal Text disappeared in the Ten Day War. That — was — a — thousand — years — ago,’ said Tobry as if talking to a slow child.

Rix ground his teeth. ‘I know!’

Tobry chuckled. ‘After that, the Herovians faded from view, though there are still plenty of them in Hightspall. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised …’ He stared at Rix for a moment.

‘What?’ said Rix.

‘Nothing.’ Tobry rode ahead.

Rix called out, ‘Why is everyone against the Herovians anyway?’

‘Arrogance and deceit,’ Tobry said over his shoulder.

Rix spurred up to him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘When they landed here and discovered how numerous and strong the Cythians were, the Herovians pretended friendship, but sent a ship racing back to Thanneron, calling thousands of settlers here with the lie that the land was empty. As soon as the Second Fleet landed, they went to war against the Cythians. The people on the Second Fleet had come in peace but they had no choice other than to fight beside the Herovians. And we’ve never forgotten how they lied to us and manipulated us.’

Rix rode on, thoughtfully. It did not answer the main question — how House Ricinus had ended up with the sword.

Directly, they emerged from the slot and headed down. It wasn’t snowing here but a drifting mist obscured the way ahead and covered every surface in tiny droplets. The clammy cold made Rix’s bones ache.

Out in the Seethings, they would be riding over the mines and tunnels of Cython. ‘Why does the chancellor let the filthy rock rats come up onto our land, anyway?’ he said irritably. ‘If I were him, I’d tumble their shaft down on them.’

‘You do know where heatstones come from — like the gigantic one that warms your chambers?’

‘I hate them. I don’t understand why we trade with the enemy for the wretched things.’

Tobry gave him a sideways glance. ‘Don’t you?’

‘The trade should be banned.’

‘Rix,’ said Tobry patiently, ‘House Ricinus holds a third of the heatstone monopoly. Your family has made a fortune from the trade.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Rix cried.

‘Where do you think your wealth comes from?’

Lady Ricinus was constantly harping on about preparing him for the time when he would be lord, yet kept every detail of House Ricinus’s affairs from him. ‘Our estates, mines and manufactories, of course.’

‘With the ash falls, the creeping cold, the shifter raids and crop failures, your estates lose money one year in two. All the profit is in trade.’

‘We lose money?’ Things must be even worse than Rix had thought.

‘The estates lose money, but most of the losses are made up in trade … and I’ve heard that House Ricinus has other sources of income.’

The track sloped down steeply here, with a sheer drop only two feet to the left and an equally steep rise on the right. Rix held his breath as Leather picked his way around a fallen boulder shaped like his father’s head, complete with the misshapen drunkard’s nose and sagging jaw. A beret of snow crusted its flat top.

‘Like what?’ Rix didn’t much like the way Tobry had said other. ‘What are you hinting at?’

‘You’ll have to ask your parents.’

Rix imagined how that conversation would go. Mother, would you care to tell me about the shady ways House Ricinus makes its money? He would sooner be strapped to the toenail puller in the fourth basement.

‘We survived without heatstones in the olden days. We can do without again.’

‘It was a lot warmer in the olden days.’

‘When I’m lord, we’ll abandon the filthy trade. And … and I’ll personally tumble the Rat Hole down on the enemy.’

‘If you mean the shaft where the Pale carry the sunstones up — ’

‘Filthy white slugs!’ Rix snapped. ‘Mother is right about them. The Pale should be put down. When I think about them going over to the enemy, willingly living with them for the past thousand years — ugh! They sicken me.’

‘Everything is black and white to you, isn’t it? There’s no middle ground.’

‘Everything is black and white,’ said Rix. ‘The Cythonians have always been our enemies, and they always will be. Since the Pale choose to serve them, they should suffer the punishment due to traitors.’

They rode out of the fog. Ahead, the rocky path wound down through forest hung with tendrils of mist.

‘Be that as it may,’ said Tobry, ‘any attack on the Rat Hole would be a declaration of war.’

‘We should declare war on the mushroom eaters,’ said Rix. ‘Why pay their usurious prices for heatstones when we can take them for ourselves? We should wipe them out once and for all.’

‘We fought a two-hundred-and-fifty-year war against them, if you remember your history lessons, and they’re still around.’

‘We drove them out of Hightspall. Sent the bastards creeping underground.’

‘But they got the better of us in the Ten Day War — and in the Secret War two hundred years ago.’

‘I’ve never heard of a Secret War.’

Tobry smirked. ‘It was a secret. Hightspall tried to poison their water, among other dirty ways to wage war. But it failed.’

‘Next time it’ll be different,’ said Rix, raising his sword as if commanding a company of Hightspall’s finest. He cried, ‘To fight for my country — ’

‘Watch the cliff!’

Rix swerved Leather to the centre of the track then rose up in his stirrups, cutting and parrying at an imaginary foe. ‘When I come of age in two weeks, I’m going to raise an army.’

Tobry’s horse shied sideways. ‘And pay for it how?’

‘Um … I’ll train the best of our serfs.’

Tobry rolled his eyes. ‘Armies are expensive, wars ruinously so. You’ll need all the profits from your heatstone monopoly to pay for it.’

‘Er …’

‘And once your war begins, there won’t be any heatstone trade. Where will you get the money then?’

‘If everyone was like you,’ Rix snapped, ‘we’d never go to war.’

‘Now you’re talking like a brawling barbarian.’ Tobry sighed. ‘Rix, there are no good wars.’

‘Nonsense. Defending one’s country is the highest calling of all. I don’t understand you, Tobe.’

Tobry rode on. ‘No, you never have.’

‘Sooner or later we’ll have to fight them.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘If the land is rising up against us, I reckon they’re behind it.’

‘Behind what, specifically?’

‘The winters that get colder every year. The wet summers where our crops struggle to ripen — ’

‘We can hardly blame the enemy for the weather.’

‘We have weather wizards,’ said Rix. ‘Why can’t they?’

‘Cythonians hate and despise all forms of magery.’

‘So they say!’ Rix sneered.

‘No, it’s a matter of faith to them. Besides, even our best weather magians can’t do more than cause a cloudburst here, a local frost or gust of wind there. To change the very climate of Hightspall is beyond all their spells put together.’

‘What about all the new plagues and poxes, then? And the shifters — ’ Rix reined in again, trying to pull his jumble of worries together.

‘What’s the matter now?’ said Tobry.

‘The caitsthe. The packs of jackal shifters. The breeding pens in the wrythen’s cavern. Tobe — they’re getting ready for war.’

Tobry stared at him. ‘For once, I believe you’re right. And jackal shifters first appeared a hundred years ago, which means Cython has been planning war for a long time.’

‘I don’t know what to make of the wrythen, though.’

‘The enemy is forbidden to do magery, so it’s doing magery for them. And if they do attack, we’ll lose.’

Rix jerked on the reins, restraining an urge to knock Tobry off his horse. ‘That’s traitor’s talk.’

‘Is Hightspall ready to fight?’

‘Our armies could march within a week … or two. Well, a month, anyway.’

‘A month! Wars have been lost in days — ugh!’ Tobry hunched over, pressing his palms against his blistered eyes.

‘Are you all right?’ Had the wrythen left something inside him?

‘I’ve felt worse.’

‘I wish you’d heal your eyes. They look horrible.’

‘I thought you were against magery,’ said Tobry.

‘I’ll make an exception in this case.’

Tobry put his hands over his eyes and subvocalised a healing charm.

Rix studied his eyes. ‘Didn’t do any good.’

‘It takes time to work.’

At this lower altitude, the track was fringed with aromatic shrubs. A fleeting ray of sunlight penetrated the clouds before they closed again and the chill wind picked up. The slopes to either side were clad in Haunted Rosewood forest, the small-leaved trees so dense that it was black inside. It had no better reputation than the valley they were running from.

It was late afternoon after a night without sleep, and Tobry was swaying in the saddle. They would have to camp soon, though Rix wanted nothing more than to get out of the mountains as quickly as possible. Even the deadly Seethings would be better than this. At least, camped by a geyser or boiling mud lake, it would be warm. He thought longingly of freshly poached trout.

‘Our generals’ tactics come from the first war,’ Tobry said, as though an hour’s silence had not passed. ‘They’re way out of date.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘The next war won’t be fought that way.’

‘If our tactics worked then,’ said Rix, ‘why wouldn’t they work now?’

‘The enemies have long memories. And they could strike anywhere, through tunnels built in secret hundreds of years ago.’

‘We’ll tunnel down to them.’

‘Whenever we’ve tried, they’ve collapsed our tunnels and killed our best miners.’

‘Then we’ll attack their entrances.’

‘Every way into Cython is a maze. We’d need ten times their number to break in, and even then we’d lose most of our men.’

‘You’re starting to piss me off, Tobe,’ Rix snarled.

He whirled and galloped down the path, hacking at the shrubbery with his sword. Hightspall was going to win. They had to. He wiped his blade and, feeling a trifle foolish, rode back.

And had another flash of the ice leviathan grinding over the walls of his beautiful palace — surely a metaphor for what was coming. He could not shake off the dread that it was somehow his fault, that his house was going to fall because of something he had done, or had refused to do.

With the cold eye of reality, he assessed the defences of Palace Ricinus. Its grounds were vast, the surrounding walls so extensive that it would take an army to defend them. Yet the palace was a fortress compared to Caulderon, which had outgrown its city walls centuries ago and now lay open to attack on all sides.

Tobry was right. The defences of Hightspall were poorly maintained, its armies ill-equipped, while not a single soldier had been blooded in war. It would take weeks to mobilise the armies and if the enemy attacked without warning … Rix tried not to think about the worst. Defeat meant annihilation. Defeat could not be countenanced.

‘We’ve got to find out what they’re up to,’ he said.

‘I can’t go back to the caverns.’ Dread showed in Tobry’s blistered eyes.

‘The way through the Seethings takes us close to the Rat Hole, doesn’t it? If the enemy are gathering to attack, we might see signs there.’

‘It’s hours out of our way. We’ve got to warn the chancellor and hours could be vital.’

‘Not as vital as knowing what the enemy is up to.’

‘No, Rix. We could go all that way and see nothing, and our news is urgent.’

Rix wasn’t listening. The diversion would put off his interrogation by Lady Ricinus for another half a day, which could only be a good thing. ‘I need to do this. We’ll take a look, then ride home as though our backsides are on fire.’

‘One misstep in the Seethings and they will be,’ muttered Tobry.

Rix heaved a great sigh. War would change everything, but as the son of a nobleman he had spent half his life perfecting the warrior’s arts. Hightspall’s armies might not be ready, but he was. He already had the chancellor’s favour, and he would be most grateful for advance warning about war. If Rix could add useful intelligence about the enemy’s movements at the Rat Hole, the chancellor might even give him command of a company.

And that would free him from Lady Ricinus’s thrall. She would not dare to stand against the absolute ruler of Hightspall.

Yes, war was just what he needed.